AN EXAMINATION OF THE QUALITIES OF COMMITTEE CLERKS ON COMMITTEES’ PERFORMANCES IN THE NIGERIAN 8TH SENATE
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- 1-5 Chapters
- Qualitative
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Background to the Study
Committee clerks are special set of personnel among civil and public servants working for various government ministries, departments, agencies/parastatals (MDAs). This is because they work to provide support services to the Parliament. Parliament provides unique role as an arm of the government through formulation of new laws and amendment of the existing ones. Wikipedia (2019) stated that in modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government with three functions which according to it include representing the electorates, making laws, and overseeing the government. Parliament consists of elected representatives saddled with legislative business and responsive to the electorates. In Nigeria, legislature which is another name for parliament comprises the National Assembly at the centre and the State Houses of Assembly at the various states of the federation. They are vested with the power for making laws at both the federal and state levels. The National Assembly which consists of the Senate and House of Representatives is the highest law making organ in the country while the State Houses of Assembly perform similar functions at the state level. At both levels of government – federal and state legislatures have administrative structure which include management, technical and legislative staff. This class of workers are collectively referred to as Parliamentary staff which to a large extent determines the performances of the legislatures (Gandi, 2016). Committees in a parliament play prominent roles in the law making functions. Committee is a miniature of the legislature because it is the engine room where law making activities are carried out. From the foregoing, the operations of the Parliament are made easier with the establishment and re-establishment of committees. The standing committees are permanent committees created under each house standing rules in conjunction with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Osuji (2003) stated that the committee system is like the engine room of the legislative process in a presidential legislature and when effective, functions as the executive arm of the legislative house for the purpose of overseeing the activities of the other branches of government and procuring relevant information to facilitate the passage or justify the rejection of proposed laws.
Yet, according to osuji, it is not expected that the legislature should have as many committees as the executive has ministries and agencies. He went ahead to cite section 62 (1) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stating that the Senate or the House of Representatives may appoint a committee of its members for such special or general purpose as in its opinion would be better regulated and managed by means of such a committee, and may by resolution, regulation or otherwise, as it thinks fit, delegate any functions exercisable by it to any such committee. Committees serve as executive units of the legislature as the ministries and extra- ministerial departments and commissions serve as executive agencies of the executive arm of government. Committees of the legislature consist of the chairman, vice chairman, members and the secretariat.
The committee is headed by a chairman while the secretariat is headed by a committee clerk who is responsible to the chairman, vice chairman and members. The secretariat headed by committee clerk comprises the bureaucrats. The bureaucrats at the secretariat execute the committee’s activities. Osuji (2003) further expressed that a committee should have a chairman, a vice chairman (who acts in the absence of the chairman) and ten to twelve members, adding that a committee secretariat is headed by a committee secretary on grade level 13-15, stressing that the committee secretary and his immediate assistant should have good university degrees. He pointed out that legislative committees’ secretariats should be manned by highly qualified officers who can compete favourably with the most senior officers in the executive departments. He also stated that they should be experienced, competent and versatile officers who, though fewer in number than the officers in the ministries and extra-ministerial departments, should be capable of scrutinizing and vetting submissions from the executive agencies so as to ensure effective oversight of the performances of the agencies of government and ensure that appropriations are strictly applied to the projects for which they are intended.
However, it should be noted in this regard that the qualities of committee clerks in a parliament become very important in administering and managing the committees. The factors that make up committee effectiveness or performances require good qualities of committee clerks for committees to function effectively. Factors contributing to committee effectiveness include the consensus building in the management of the committee, skills of chairperson, mandate of the committee and rule of operations and size of the committee (World Bank, 2019). Committee effectiveness or performances could be achieved in relation with possession of relevant qualities by committee clerks. Among factors that determine these qualities include the acquisition of relevant educational qualifications, possession of adequate and cognate legislative experiences and acquisition of relevant legislative skills through attendance/participation in various training and retraining programmes. Exhibition of these qualities by committee clerks in the course of their duties would help in a greater measure to achieve the effectiveness or performances of the committees. However, the success of a committee may help the parliament to achieve its objectives in spreading democratic gains across geo-political zones of the country. These include provision of basic needs for citizens such as water, electricity, roads, health care, security and other infrastructural facilities. It is based on the above, that this study is titled “An Examination of the Qualities of Committee Clerks on Committees’ Performances in the Nigerian 8th Senate”.
Statement of the Problem
Committee clerks are expected to possess certain professional qualities which should be capable to make them excel in doing their jobs. These qualities which are determinants for improving committees’ performances include sound educational qualifications, experiences and legislative skills derived from training and retraining programmes. It is necessary to state that operations of the legislative committees in the 8th senate were challenged by various intervening variables which require experts’ approaches to overcoming such challenges. Such intervening variables that challenged committees’ activities included poor office accommodation for committees’ secretariats for clerks and staff, poor internet facilities, absence of operational vehicles, inadequate and up-to-date computer systems, inadequate funding for committees, staff’s educational qualifications and their skills, non-challant attitudes of some committee staff and many others. Sagai (2018) in his work revealed that the 8th National Assembly were confronted with a chunk of problems which included funding, lack of adequate rooms/offices, vehicles, poor motivation and training. Not only the above, other intervening variables which also constitute challenges and require the qualities of committee clerks in providing solutions to achieve committees’ performances include tension between chairpersons and committee clerks with chairs wielding more powers to themselves, chairpersons looking down on committee clerks, difficult personalities from some committees’ members, non-active chairpersons, senior members absent at the meetings, and many others (CPA UK 2018).
It is important to note that the management/senate’s directorate of the 8th senate in some occasions through their expressions were displeased when rejections of committees’ reports occurred at the plenary for lacking required merits. It should be noted however that the management in the 8th senate continued with the tradition of distributing committees into cluster groups like in the 7th senate. Some committees numbering up to five or less were distributed into cluster groups having over them a cluster group head. Cluster group heads were mandated to scrutinize committees’ reports before they were laid for debate in the chamber. This approach was targeted to minimize the rejection of committees’ reports. Therefore, the failure of the legislature in a constitutional government cannot be disassociated from ineffectiveness or poor performances of the various legislative committees. Among other reasons this can be linked to inadequacies characterized with the qualities of committee clerks which do as a whole have reflections on the output of the legislature.
Intervening variables such as the office facilities/materials and disposition of staff of committees which constitute challenges to committee clerks in the management of committees, and rejection of committees’ reports prepared by committee clerks at the senate’s plenary constitute the foundation or problems to this study. From the forgoing, poor performances of the committee clerks cannot be detached from their poor qualities. This is because of their failure to manage some challenges being encountered in the discharge of their duties. This study is worried about the rejection of some committee reports which whether or not it was because of improper educational qualifications, or inadequate/non-relevant experiences, or inadequate training and retraining programmes for committee clerks. However, it is from this direction that this study is titled “an examination of the qualities of committee clerks on committees’ performances in the Nigerian 8th senate.”
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